Michael Dell hints at smartphones, mobile Internet devices — CEO says it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a smartphone or similar device from the company — IDG News Service) Michael Dell gave the strongest hint to-date that his company is developing a mobile Internet device or smartphone at a speech in Tokyo today.

Dell says smartphone to be released on schedule — Dell will not delay the launch of its new smartphone lineup and is on schedule to release devices in line with its internal roadmap, company CEO Michael Dell said recently in Taipei. However Dell did not publicly divulge any details indicating when products are scheduled for release.

Skype, Now the Largest Long-distance Phone Company — TeleGeography says that cross-border telephone traffic grew 14 percent in 2007 and is estimated to have grown 12 percent in 2008, to 384 billion minutes. Falling prices and rising popularity have flattened the revenues (see graph below the fold).

Call to ‘shut down’ Street View — Images of 25 cities are viewable via Google Street View — A formal complaint about Google's Street View has been sent to the Information Commissioner (ICO). — Drawn up by privacy campaigners, it cites more than 200 reports from members of the public identifiable via the service.

The First Linux Botnet — It never made sense that you could make a botnet out of Linux desktop users, but the people who built psyb0t knew its users don't pay attention to it. — They're calling it the first botnet designed for broadband equipment and routers, and that it is.

Hackers steer clear of Google Chrome, say too challenging — At the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver BC, hackers were invited to find and exploit holes in modern browsers. A popular target for hackers at this year's conference was Safari on a Mac — definitely the lowest hanging fruit.

Two new improvements to Google results pages — Today we're rolling out two new improvements to Google search. The first offers an expanded list of useful related searches and the second is the addition of longer search result descriptions — both of which help guide users more effectively to the information they need.

Rhomobile promises: Build once, deploy to any smartphone — If you're interested in developing a mobile application but find the range of phones out there to be overwhelming, a startup called Rhomobile wants to help. Not only does its Rhodes programing framework allow you to build mobile …

Skimmer brings your social streams to the desktop — Skimmer is a new social aggregator powered by Adobe AIR. It supports Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger, and lets you stay abreast of the latest content from each of those services. Everything gets sucked up into a single stream …

Sprint Looks Beyond Cellphones — As Core Business Slumps, Wireless Carrier Aims to Use Its Network for Dashboard Computers, GPS Devices — Unable to sign up enough new cellphone subscribers, Sprint Nextel Corp. is increasingly trying to use the excess capacity on its wireless network to power other consumer gadgets.

New Insights for your Search — Some of you may already be familiar with Google Insights for Search, which launched last August. — Much like Google Trends, you can use Insights for Search to analyze search volume patterns over time, as well as related queries and rising searches.

Windows Home Server - Announcing Power Pack 2 — We are pleased to announce Windows Home Server Power Pack 2. Power Pack 2 fixes known issues and adds new features to improve the Windows Home Server experience. Enhancements include: Improvements to remote access configuration …

Peek presents the Peek Pronto — Remember my story on dumb devices? Well here's the ultimate dumb device. The Peek Pronto is actually quite smart. The cosmetics on this new version are slightly different - a better keyboard and a new color, basically - but under the hood you get push email …

Steve Wozniak Joins DeepDyve Advisory Board — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is joining the advisory board of the research engine DeepDyve, a search engine designed to scour the “deep web.” This “deep web” is an area of the internet that isn't currently indexed by modern-day search engines …

ASUS Eee Keyboard PC (Video) — It's the polar opposite of what you usually see on the portal. A mobile PC built around a huge keyboard with a tiny screen tacked on to the side. Obviously this is not quite your mobile productivity box (unless you want a kneck injury) but it's an interesting option for the home.